


Unwed

by Hello_Spikey



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-29
Updated: 2008-06-29
Packaged: 2019-06-15 03:09:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15403617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hello_Spikey/pseuds/Hello_Spikey
Summary: Buffy just took her swan-dive, Giles is on a road trip to find solace, or himself, guitar in hand.  He finds Darla!





	Unwed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ClawofCat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClawofCat/gifts).



> I chose to start this out with him playing "My Wife" for irony's sake, and because that was the flip side of my "Behind Blue Eyes" 45! :D
> 
> While Giles was nekid guest on **nekid_spike** , I simply had to post something with him and not Spike - if only for the novelty of writing something without Spike in it!
> 
> Thanks to **clawofcat** for the plot suggestion.

Giles strummed hard, transferring harsh sounds to acoustic as he finished up his set.

_“I ain't been home since Friday night_  
_And now my wife is coming after me”_

He liked the harshness of this song, the way it evoked no sympathy, unlike “Behind Blue Eyes”, which started his set. He didn’t want sympathy, didn’t deserve it, and like the narrator, he was on the run.

_“Gonna buy a tank and an aeroplane_  
_When she catches up with me_  
_Won't be no time to explain”_

It was a smoke-filled coffee house in a rest-stop of a town off the turnpike, and he didn’t even know what state he was in. Somewhere still west enough that the exits were far between and the scenery barren. Still the place had pretensions of urbanity, an eager crowd and all the trappings of open mic nights in more glamorous locals – the bare brick backed stage, the café tables littered with pamphlets for local bands, the espresso cups the size of one’s head.

Certainly the blonde woman sitting right in front of the stage was no worn-down trailer-park madam. Her bright blonde hair was carefully coifed, her make-up perfect, and her red dress distinctly out of step with the jeans and t-shirts that predominated. She was distractingly pretty, in a way totally unlike Buffy, unlike anyone on the long list of faces he was trying not to think about, and so he found himself looking more and more into her pale eyes, singing the song almost entirely to her quizzical smile.

_“I gotta rest some time so_  
_I can get to run some more…”_

He drew the last line out, playing a quick, fun little finale. When he stood the small crowd cheered and clapped enthusiastically.

He carried his guitar back to the booth where he’d been nursing a cup of god-awful Darjeeling before the set and wasn’t surprised to find the stage left empty in his wake.

He was surprised when the young blonde woman slipped into the other side of the booth. Her voice was breathy, just a little high. “That was a good song. I like it. Ironic too. I think the only thing I’ll never be is a wife.” She tilted her head. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

He stowed his guitar carefully under the table, studying the beautiful face before him. “You have me at a disadvantage,” he said. “Or I’m not who you think I am.”

“Well,” she smiled. “I think you are Rupert Giles, member of the watcher’s council, practitioner of magic, and one hell of a tenor.” She waved absently to a waiter. “Though I admit that last part I only just learned.”

“Tell me who you are immediately or I will end this conversation.”

She pouted. “I’m really sad you don’t remember me. I remember you. Well, I was more into the schoolgirl look back when I was in Sunnydale. For Heinrich, you know. Do you think he would have married me? If I’d asked? Would have been something, to actually have a wedding. But I suppose vampires don’t do that. Holy rites aren’t quite our thing. Too many crosses about. Oh, but Angelus would have enjoyed the sacrilege. If I ever get him back, I’ll have to ask. Think he’d make an honest woman of me? Heh. Funny to have to wonder after sleeping with a man for over a century.” The waiter had arrived and she smiled up at him brightly. “I’ll have a round of whatever he’s having.”

“It’s not a bar,” Giles said, evenly, “Darla.”

“You don’t order coffee in rounds? Seems uncivilized. Bring us something strong and sweet, dear boy. Surprise us.”

The waiter, confused and not used to these kinds of orders, nonetheless could see that the woman had a knife hidden in her smile and the man held an unpinned grenade in his eyes. “Uh… how about our Turkish coffee?”

“Fine,” Giles said, and waved at the waiter like one might wave at an infuriating fly.

Darla tutted while the boy made a hasty retreat. “Shouldn’t be rude to the wait staff, Rupert, it shows poor manners.”

“Why have you followed me here? Is it to get to Buffy? If so, you’re too late.”

“You have no idea how much I wish this was your typical evil plot, but it’s really just luck. Though I was hoping to run into someone like you. Rupert, I need help.”

“I am telling nothing to you. Neither am I sharing coffee and chatting about old acquaintances with the undead. If you have a threat or prophecy to deliver, all I can say is I am off duty with regards to world saving at the moment and you can stick it up your arse.”

She set her hands on the table, shoulders high, head low, she looked like a lion about to pounce. “Fuck it. Giles, I’m pregnant.”

Giles blinked, several times, rapidly. “I beg your pardon?”

“Oh yes. Think about how it feels from my point of view. It’s been three weeks, I think, maybe more – all I know is I can hear this tiny little heart beat and it never stops!” She looked frantic, all of a sudden. “Do you have any idea what that’s like? It’s inside my body! I can hear it and feel it and it is ALIVE.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. That isn’t remotely possible, and it is even less funny.”

“You’re telling me.” She laid her cheek on the table, though the touch of ironic smile ruined the pathetic pose. “Help me, Giles? You’re my only hope?”

The Turkish coffee arrived while they were locked in this tableaux – incredulity meeting pleading. The waiter wisely said nothing, set the cups down and hurried away.

Darla straightened in her chair and pulled her cup to her. “I remember my first taste of Turkish coffee. It was in Turkey, of course. Istanbul is such a vibrant city, so alive at night.” She smirked. “That’s a tourism must for vampires.”

“I can imagine,” Giles said in a flat voice.

She set down her cup with a sigh. “All right. Tell me your problems.”

“I assure you that is the furthest thing form my mind.”

“It isn’t.” She tilted her head back. “I know men, Mr. Rupert Giles, and I know that the best way to engage a man’s… intellect,” she said the word like it was the most obscene double-entandre, “is to get him to talk about himself. And here you are, the great Rupert Giles, slayerless, playing bad Who covers in a coffee shop outside Des Moines.”

They were in Iowa? Giles quickly thought over his drive, which clearly had been longer than he thought. Where had that horrid little country bar been? He could have sworn it was Oregon. Wait a minute - _bad_ Who covers? He scowled.

“I always thought you were the real threat, you know, not the little cheerleader. I told Heinrich as much half a dozen times.”

Giles raised his chin and narrowed his eyes. “Buffy is dead.” Darla’s eyes widened and her mouth closed into a little ‘o’. Giles grimaced. “Do not fake sympathy. It doesn’t become you.”

Darla broke into a wolfish grin. “Well, I haven’t had much practice. Can’t say I’m sorry to see her go, no. Does Angel know? Did he cry?” She batted her eyelashes, pouting again with false sympathy.

“Angel can bugger himself,” Giles said. “And so can you.”

“And here I thought you were the always proper sort. What a way to talk to a lady.”

“You are not a lady, in my view. So good night.”

Giles’ dramatic exit was spoiled somewhat by the awkwardness of getting the guitar out from under the table and scooting out of the booth-seat, but he could have cared less.

He realized as he was crossing to the exit that he had turned his back on a dangerous vampire without thought.

Was that what he was really doing on this road trip? Drive by day, drink by night; it was a recipe for death by vampire.

Bugger it, he couldn’t care less for introspection, either. He walked to his car.

And was slammed against it.

“The guitar!” Giles scrambled to save it, but the case bounced hard against the pavement.

Darla lifted him by his neck. “Were you going to stiff me with the check?”

“Going to kill me for ungentlemanly behavior? I’m surprised you need an excuse.” He twisted, ostensibly to struggle but really to disguise the act of slipping his hand into his pocket and closing around the stake he kept there.

The corner of her mouth lifted. “I think I like you, Rupert Giles. It’s not many men I’ve held like this who haven’t wet themselves. You barely smell afraid.”

“Try me when I face something better than one of the master’s minions,” he said, and struck hard for Darla’s chest.

Faster than human sight, she batted the stake out of his hand, leaving his wrist throbbing from the impact. “Well that was stupid,” she said, and punched him in the jaw.

He came to seated in the passenger seat of his own car, his hands tied with the shoulder-belt. The highway ribboned ahead of them, just the reflective lines showing in the indistinguishable darkness.

“This place is nowhere,” Darla said. “I should have turned west. If we can’t find a decent hotel before daybreak, Rupert, I’m holding you personally responsible.”

“Oh no, then I shall be truly worried,” he muttered.

“The fearlessness was cute. The sarcasm isn’t.” She spared him a smirk before returning her attention to the road.

The sky was taking on a watery pre-dawn hue as they pulled into the Limberlost Motel – or Limberlost o-el, as the partially broken sign actually read. Despite the danger of the coming dawn, Darla was not rushed. She parked, walked unhurried to the office and back with the room key dangling from one finger.

Giles had noted, now that he was not distracted by the nearness of a vampire – it was like driving with a pit viper – that his guitar was safe in the back seat, the case only a little scuffed.

Darla opened the car door and regarded Giles coolly. “I could just leave you here for the day,” she said.

“That would be fine. I’m quite comfortable.”

Darla rolled her eyes skyward and ripped the binding from Giles’ hands. “Don’t give me an excuse to end you. I just had my nails done.”

“Try it, you undead, overbearing cow.” Giles wrenched from her grasp. “It could take all morning to get me inside, there are witnesses and the sun, dear lady, is on my side.”

So, with a shrug, Darla bent, wrapped her arms around Giles’ hips, and lifted him, flailing, onto her shoulder.

Stepping out of a truck in a nearby parking space was a rather large man with a brown t-shirt for “Billy Rays Gun Shack” stretching over his round gut, and a smaller woman with distressed hair and an enormous shoulder bag. They watched passively as Giles was carried up to the motel room door.

“Damn it, I’m being abducted!” Giles shouted.

The man grinned and gave him a thumbs-up.

Darla pushed the door open and out of the way with one hip as she threw Giles. He landed on the nearer of two hotel beds, which shook but took the assault well. It was hard as a rock. He coughed, lungs strained from the impact.

He was too old for this sort of thing. He rolled onto his side, wheezing, and saw Darla securing the chain-lock on the door.

“I bet my hair is a mess,” she said, and reached up to tug and tease at her locks. Sighing, she tossed the key on the ancient laminate dresser. “Well now,” she turned to face Giles. “What am I going to do with you?”

Leaning on one elbow, his hair falling over his forehead, he regarded her. “If you’re going to kill me I wish you’d bloody well get on with it.”

She pursed her lips. “Are all watchers this testy?”

“I certainly hope so.”

She approached the bed, not threatening in her aspect – she didn’t have to be. “You know why I need you alive.”

“I don’t know why you think you are pregnant.”

“I am!”

Giles raised his eyebrows. “There is no prophecy I am familiar with, and I highly doubt you can make me research one at pistol-point.”

Darla tilted her head. “Why not? I could make you do a lot of things, to save your life.”

“I wouldn’t call water wet under threat from you.”

She wriggled her shoulders. “Oh, Rupert, you’re giving me such ideas.”

He rose on his knees, towering over her from his position on the bed. “You’ll find I’m not as accommodating as other men.”

“I never had patience with accommodating men.”

She was leaning very close to him now, eyes searching his face.

“I’m amazed you have any sort of patience at all,” Giles said, leaning back to put distance between them, and also to emphasize the height, moral and physical, from which he regarded her. “Creature of appetites. Whatever you hope to gain from this ruse…”

She backhanded him.

He nearly toppled, feeling the hot imprint of her hand on his cheek.

She walked to the other bed, stripping its covers back. “I don’t have patience with men who accuse me of lying, either.” She pulled the sheet off, smoothed the hem between her hands, and started to rip it.

“What are you doing?”

She tossed a coy smile over her shoulder. “What, is this the first time you’ve been held captive?”

“I had the honor of Angelus’ hospitality,” he said.

For a moment, a strange expression crossed her face, half concern, half jealousy. She banished it with a false smile. “Then you know I’m going to tie you up.” She tugged the strip of sheet between her fists.

“He is one of the most renowned torturers in history, and I never told him a word he wanted to know. I have no fear, dear lady, of you doing better.”

“Mm,” She twisted the strip of sheet between her hands and sauntered seductively toward him. “Who do you think _taught_ Angelus?”

“You’re no sadist.”

“You watchers always over-look the accomplishments of ladies. I have read your books, you know. The laughably skewed accounts!” She knelt on the bed and looped the fabric around Giles, drawing him toward her in a parody of love-play. “I didn’t make destroying people my hobby like Angelus, no, but I created him. And if I have to, to get what I want, I could create you.”

Holding his arms bound to his sides with the loop of muslin held in her one hand, she ran her other hand down the side of his neck. He turned away and she followed the line of tension down to his shirt-collar. “Have you ever considered immortality, Mr. Rupert Giles?”

His heartbeat was strong and loud, pulsing against her fingertips. “Try to feed me your blood and I will spit it in your face.”

“Sure about that? So many people think they’ll be strong, but when faced with the end of their existence…” she slipped the top button of his shirt open. “Well, who can blame them?”

“Is that what it was, for you?”

The coy, false-affectionate smirk melted from her face. “I was ready to die. Both times.”

“No,” he suddenly gripped her arms. “You are not ready to die! You don’t… you can’t…” he stopped himself, blinking hard. He forced his hands off her arms.

She let go of the muslin strip. “It’s all right,” she said, tiredly, “I’m used to men pretending I’m someone else.”

“I don’t know where that came from. I… I’m tired.”

“Don’t lie to yourself,” she said, tilting her head back. “I’ve only just met you and I can tell it’s not your style.”

Giles took off his glasses – they were smudged and askew anyway. “Who _are_ you?”

One corner of her mouth lifted. “Maybe the real reason vampires don’t have reflections is to keep us from asking ourselves that question.”

And while he blinked in confusion, she leaned forward, pressing her soft lips to his.

He stiffened and started to back away. “Sh,” she said, undoing another button on his shirt and holding him by the sides of his collar. “We’re not going anywhere for a few hours, Mr. Rupert Giles.”

“You’re not going to seduce my cooperation out of me.”

“Good,” she said. “I don’t seduce men for any reason other than to sleep with them.”

“I… my… oh.” He said, as her hands slipped down his shirt front and into the front of his jeans. “Well, carry on then.” He tossed the glasses onto the side table and put his hands on her small, curvaceous waist. He could feel the curve of the top of her hips, and the subtle contours of her flesh. Was there really a child growing in this dead body? His thumbs brushed along her navel, feeling it easily through the thin stretch knit of her dress.

They kissed simply, at first, little pecks and nips, learning each other. Darla laughed against him, pressing her lips firmly to his jawline. “Stubble. It’s been so long since I kissed a stubbly face.”

“Sorry.”

“No, I love it.” She leaned back, her arms resting on his shoulders as she looked him over appreciatively. “You’re all man.”

He’d grown unused to that sort of attention, surrounded by teenagers who saw him as ancient. “Thank you,” he said, and then gasped as she leaned in close to his neck.

“I’m not going to bite,” she chided. “This time.” And she licked the prickly hairs along the underside of his jaw, kissing and nibbling there with small appreciative sounds while her hands worked busily on his buttons.

“Wait, I…”

She slipped the top off his shoulders and gripped the front of his undershirt, ripping it down the middle.

Giles suddenly was very conscious of the age difference and sucked in his gut hard, scrambling to achieve a more attractive position, leaning back.

Darla laughed, “Oh, Rupert. You’re blushing. If you knew how many fat, grey-haired bellies I’ve seen.” Her fingers played through the hair on his chest.

“Thank you, that’s quite reassuring that I’m not the first hideous old man you’ve slept with.”

“Don’t make me reassure you. I’m tired of reassuring men.” She raked her fingernails through the thickly curled hairs in the center of his chest and wriggled her hips, scooting down the bed to lay her lips against them. She licked salt-sweat and curled her tongue through the hairs.

He gasped, feeling himself stripped and laid out under her, now being tasted and sampled like a treat. “Oh… oh my, you’re good.”

“Mmm.” Darla agreed, letting her thigh casually brush the straining erection below her. “Believe me, Mr. Giles,” she tossed her head back, sighing as she settled in on top of him, “No vampire would dally with you this long if you weren’t deliciously handsome.”

“Delicious?” Giles smiled, tilting his head and looking off into the distance as if filing this compliment away carefully for later enjoyment.

Darla rose up from the arduous task of undoing Giles’ pants. “As much as I love the ‘ravisher’ role, you could be a little more active.”

“It’s been a while since I was last ravished,” Giles retorted.

She leaned her weight on one elbow and played her lips over his chest. “And you’ve forgotten how?”

“Hardly.” He grasped her arms, kissed her hard and flipped her over onto her back. She let out a delighted laugh.

“I seem to remember, in my advanced age, where all the parts are,” he said, conversationally while his hand cupped Darla’s sex hard, fingers slipping into slick folds.

She tilted her head back. “Yes, you do.”

Half-angry, half not caring anymore, he shoved his clothes the rest of the way off and grabbed one milky-smooth thigh, lifting it over his arm. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“It’s not like I can get _more_ pregnant,” she replied, curling her toes through his hair.

He plunged into her, hard, grasping flesh brutally. She met him thrust for thrust, skilled thighs clinging almost too tightly, her fingernails digging hard under the curve of his buttocks. They fought for control of the rhythm and speed until finally they both lost control and meshed perfectly in a heated dance of need.

He didn’t expect the sudden, cold-sharp pain in his neck, a shock like ice water and then the pull of his blood being drunk.

His vision blacked out with climax, his body shivering and quaking through the aftershocks.

He came to his senses lying on his stomach. At first not sure who he was, then not sure where he was, and then, “Did you bite me?”

“It makes me feel alive,” she said, quietly. Her hand stroked up and down between her breasts. Her eyes were on the ceiling. “When we’re close enough that your heartbeat shakes my still veins. When your warmth is inside me. Is that strange? I wonder if all vampires crave this. It’s funny. We’re stronger, we’re immortal, but we never stop yearning for the living.”

“You’re supposed to be dead,” Giles said. “You can’t help but feel the contradiction in your nature.”

She turned to face him, head pillowed on her upper arm. “Can you feel it?” She picked his hand up from the pillow and, despite a momentary resistance, he let her guide it to the soft curve of her stomach. “When there isn’t another heartbeat around, it’s deafening. Isn’t this wrong? Life shouldn’t come from death. I’m not alive, Rupert. I never intended to be a mother. How can this happen to me, now? What can it possibly mean?”

Giles felt only smooth skin, a little too smooth, and cool as porcelain. “Darla, I don’t even know how to explain the non-supernatural vagaries of my own life.”

They stared, together, at his hand on her skin. Then Darla smiled. “Did I tire you out?”

“Hardly,” he lied.

“Great. Want to do it again?”

***

Darla lay asleep, her blonde hair a halo around her head on the pillow. Her features were so delicate in sleep, almost fragile. Her hand was splayed, protectively, on her stomach.

He gathered up his clothes and simply walked out the door without looking back. He didn’t see Darla slit one eye open and watch him go. He cursed himself for a fool all the way back onto the freeway, but he knew why he hadn’t killed her while she lay there, vulnerable.

He believed her. And that meant that there was life, in that corpse body. And life was so very precious.

It was time he returned to living his.

When he got to the entrance ramp, it took no thought to turn in the direction of Sunnydale, to start his journey back home.

The end.


End file.
